House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) berated House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for his “cowardly refusal” to take action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and mocking her Republican counterpart by changing his party designation from “R” to “Q” for QAnon of California.
“After several conversations and literally running away from reporters, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Q-CA) made clear that he is refusing to take action against conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Pelosi said in a statement, with the headline “McCarthy (Q-CA) Fails to Lead, Hands Keys to Party to Greene.”
The House Speaker had given McCarthy until Thursday to remove Greene from the House Budget Committee and the House Education & Labor Committee or they will do it themselves by voting to pass a resolution. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) authored the resolution measure to remove Greene from the two plum committee assignments for the remainder of this Congress by citing House rules that members “shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.”
Greene has been at the center of backlash in recent weeks after CNN’s KFILE and liberal organization Media Matters unearthed past Facebook posts and “likes” of false conspiracy theories that the deadly school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida were really “false flag” and staged operations by anti-gun activists. Other posts found that Greene before she was elected to Congress liked posts that are now deleted that supported calls for violence against Pelosi and other top prominent Democrats.
“As a result, the House will continue with a vote to strip Greene of her seat on the esteemed House Committee on Education & Labor and House Committee on Budget. McCarthy’s failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene – an anti-Semite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther,” Pelosi’s release said.
Pelosi cited condemnations from other GOP lawmakers to attack McCarthy’s “cowardly refusal” to act against Greene. The House Speaker suggested his “breaks with calls” with top GOP members proves that McCarthy has “chosen to make House Republicans ‘the party of conspiracy theories and QAnon’ and Rep. Greene is in the driver’s seat.”
McCarthy’s office clapped back to Pelosi’s “pettiness” statement, saying the House Speaker “does nothing to solve a single problem in American’s lives,” and only cares about the driving in the “clicks and screenshots.”
“In Speaker Boehner’s office, we referred to this kind of pettiness as ‘punching down,'” McCarthy’s digital communications director Caleb Smith tweeted in response to Pelosi’s statement. “It’s beneath the dignity of the office she holds and does nothing to solve a single problem in Americans’ lives. But hey—anything to drive clicks and screenshots!”
McCarthy met with Greene Tuesday night for about 90 minutes ahead of a GOP Steering Committee meeting. The Steering Committee, headed by McCarthy determines members’ committee assignments and can also strip committee assignments away from members. After the meeting the following day, McCarthy released a statement denouncing Greene’s past remarks.
“Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference,” McCarthy’s statement reads. “I condemn those comments unequivocally. I condemned them in the past. I continue to condemn them today. This House condemned QAnon last Congress and continues to do so today.”
The GOP leader didn’t state any disciplinary actions to strip Greene from her committee assignments. However, McCarthy criticized Democrats for “choosing to raise the temperature” by pursuing a resolution “to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party.”
Greene responded in a series of tweets Wednesday morning on reports of McConnell trying to broker a deal with Democrats by proposing to remove the Georgia lawmaker from the Education and Labor Committee in exchange for dropping the House resolution vote to remove her from the proposed panel as well as the Budget Committee.
“No matter what GOP Leader does it would never be enough for the hate America Democrats,” Greene said in one of the chain tweets. “As much as he genuinely tries to work with Speaker Pelosi for the good of this country, she refuses to see the hypocrisy of her own conference.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) rejected McCarthy proposed deal to strip Green from the Education and Labor Committee but allow her to remain on the House Budget panel. After rejecting the deal, Hoyer announced Democrats are moving ahead with “holding a Floor vote on the resolution to remove Rep. Greene from her committee assignments.”
In response to the growing pressure to strip Greene of her committee assignments, some Republicans attempted to counter-protest calls from Democrats and holding them to the same standards. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) proposed a revised version of the Democratic resolution, removing Greene name and replacing it with that of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and calling for her removal from the House Foreign Affairs due to her slew of past anti-Semitic comments, arguing that they are grounds for dismissal.
Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Jody Hice (R-GA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Ronny Jackson (R-TX) sponsored the proposed amendment. Babin in a tweet with a screenshot list of Omar’s past remarks reiterated if Democrats “wants to go down this road, they should start by dealing with their own members.”
However, with Democrats having the majority in the House, the proposal is doomed to fail.
Erleebird
February 4, 2021Pelosi has a lot of nerve! Swalwell was sleeping with a Chinese spy for at least one year and he was not ostracized as he should have been! What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!
Mark
February 4, 2021Did the old drunken bitch Pelosi remove swallow from foreign intelligence committee.
Tell her and scumbag DWS who was fired from Demonrat party chair. Tell them all to go to hell. Time for Repub states to secede from the Union and start the New United States! All Demonrat states and cities are Bankrupt. Let them sink. The highest murder rates are theirs let them kill each other. Drunken sot POS Pelosi said she would physically drag Trump out of the White House. Maybe she should be treated like Mussolini! We dint need them. They need our tax money for all their failing economies. They’re just an Albatross around our necks!
PatriotVeteran
February 3, 2021Rep Greene was voted into office by her constituents and the Pelosi Scumbag Thinks she is the Queen and Power in the (D)RAT Party and everyone must do what she says.
Horse manure – They may be able to take actions, but only her voters decide her future and she will win again in 2022-24 and beyond. Georgia has a great person, with values, representing us. Keep up the good fight girl and We’re with you.
Camus
February 3, 2021Rep Greene is one of the only honest and honorable in our government. She is a super star.
eagle
February 3, 2021If republicans expect anyone to take them serious then they need to get serious and stand up for what is right.